Sunday, March 22, 2009

Nags bags two

I actually prefer to call him Paulinho but that only serves to confuse people...

Still, whatever you call him, Paulo Nagamura is suddenly a goal scorer. He scored twice in Chivas USA's 2-1 win over Colorado on Saturday.

How rare are Nagamura goals? In 2005 and 2006, he combined for zero goals. In 2007 and 2008, he combined for four goals. It took him four minutes to match what it had taken him 104 games to accomplish in the first place.

Overall, Chivas USA played well enough to win but still showed there was plenty of room for improvement. The forwards were out of sorts as Eduardo Lillingston and Justin Braun struggled. Maykel Galindo came in and performed, and if he can get fully healthy soon, the club will be much more dangerous because of that.

Zach Thornton was atrocious on the first goal but made some good saves and showed some decent movement. Still, leaving rebounds and misplaying shots like he did on Colorado's goal was horrific.

Anyway, it's a good start for Chivas USA and next week's game in FC Dallas will be yet another challenge as Sacha Kljestan won't be around. For their sake, Galindo needs to get healthy soon.

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